While I was waiting for stain to dry this afternoon, I grabbed the wingtips and tried to figure out what the first builder had done to them. Anyone familiar with my build will not be surprised to see that they're a bit of a mess.

There are aluminum strips messily bonded into the inner face of the wing tips, where they would attach to the aluminum attachment strips that are bonded/riveted to the #10 cap strip (Series 5, long wings) after covering. At the forward end of one of them, the Scotch-Weld has failed and the aluminum has come loose.

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QUESTION 1: It appears to me that these strips were installed in order to make the outer surface of the wing tips flush with the cap strips. Does that sound right? Has anyone else had to do this to install their wing tips?

I found a pile of aluminum pieces that appear to be the attachment strips. However, there are too many pieces and I can't make any of the holes in them align with the holes in the #10 rib cap strips. Strangely, there are also holes drilled through the fiberglass of the wing tip edges (now filled with plugs of Scotch-Weld and covered by the bonded-in aluminum), but the holes in these strips don't match any of those holes either. Some of these strips appear to have glue residue on them, as if they'd been installed somewhere at one time. It's all very strange.

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QUESTION 2: Clearly, I need to fabricate my own wing tip attachment strips. Can someone please confirm that they're made from 1" wide x 0.050" thick aluminum?

Finally, this is the state of the trailing edges of both wing tips. As you can see, they've already been trimmed to length (accurately, thank goodness), but one appears to have either split or been cut (the one that's completely out of focus; sorry...), and the other has so much resin between the upper and lower surfaces that you'd never be able to glue the trailing edge closed.

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QUESTION 3: Is this situation with the excess resin a common problem? Do you just cut the tip open, grind out the excess resin, bond it back together and do some bodywork magic before painting?

Thanks!